


A Hell For Angels

by schmevil



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Apocalypse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-13
Updated: 2009-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-02 14:49:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schmevil/pseuds/schmevil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end of days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Hell For Angels

**Author's Note:**

> Cliche Bingo prompt: "It's the end of the world as we know it - Apocafic."
> 
> Tammylee betaed.

There is some worry that the armies of hell might win. Once their defeat is assured, and it is no longer a battle, but a slaughter, the purge begins. Zacariah, in his infinite arrogance, overextends himself and finds himself trapped between two very hungry, and very old residents of the deep. He calls for help, but his brothers only turn their backs, and concentrate their efforts on exterminating every last twisted soul, and fallen angel. Zacariah is the first of the newly fallen to die; the first of those who engineered these long engagements on their Father's earth, only to die in the last battle. He is not the last.

When it is done, the host stand on the vast and desolate plain that is the earth, their numbers less than half of those who once sang the praises of their Lord, and did His work. Nothing lives on His creation, save them. The oceans have long since boiled to nothingness. Even the atmosphere which once nourished a wondrous network of life, in so many varied forms that even His angels could not catalogue them all, has fled. Still, they have won: although this end was engineered by those who would usurp His throne, His will, surely was working through them. This is His desire. His loyal servants wait for Him to start anew; to see His paradise as they have not seen it in too long, even as angel's reckon time.

They wait. They have defeated the armies of hell, and slain the apostates. Still they wait, in this wasteland they have helped to create, without sign or direction. The earth is silent. As silent as heaven had fallen, long ago. They had not taken it for a sign, merely His will. Not even those closest to His warmth, would ever understand His plan, in all its complexity.

Perhaps, one of them thinks, it was a sign. Perhaps this is. The thought is quiet, small and hidden deep in his grace, where his brothers cannot easily find it. They are all of them believers. The thought is a seed and it takes root, as nothing else can on His earth. It is nourished by the blasted depths that were once home to creatures alien to His humans, but beautiful to him. It is nourished by the deserts that exist in place of His rain forests. It is nourished by the craters, where once stood the cities of his favourite of His creations. It is nourished by the silence of heaven, where he hoped to find the voices of those he once treasured.

They who won the battle against the light-bearer, and perished in the doing of it. Ages since, in the way that humans reckoned time; long even for angels. The passage of time does nothing but sharpen his memories of them; nothing but graft them deeper. This too, nourishes the seed.

They retain their powers, in full measure, but they use them for nothing. Only wait, and sing His praises. They will not despair. Their song is hollow, and leaving them to travel the rest of His vast creation, returns to them unchanged. They hear nothing but the echo of their own voices. Still they wait. His plan is mysterious. If paradise is long in coming, then surely that is only right?

But where is paradise, he wonders? That which he promised them as they were dying. If not here, then perhaps some other realm in His creation, of which his brethren remain ignorant? It is enough, he thinks, to know that He is just, and they have received their reward, though their world is dead. They wait, and although he stands with them, among them, something has changed deep inside his grace. Their world is dead, and they had not looked for any reward.

Long has the seed grown inside of him, and his brothers yet remain ignorant of it. They hear only another hollow voice; another grace, burning for Him. So he takes a chance. To the faces he has clung to, he adds names: Dean, and Sam. Bobby, and Chuck. Names belonging to a dead world. He finds he cannot bear to think their souls might be dead. Heaven is empty.

This is His plan. He is not so far gone as to doubt this, though he entertains other doubts, minor, in the scheme of things. Where is paradise? His will, working even through those who denied Him, has created this end of mortal days. But what of His angels, who retain their powers over matter and anti-matter, space and time, now utterly useless. Waiting. Is this their punishment, for having listened to the apostates too long: a hell for angels? And yet, were they in they hell, would they not know it? An eternity without his presence. Save for their existence, and that of His creation, all of which are part of Him. Save for their faith, which never wavers.

Angels are not omniscient. He decides to take another chance. He finds a single mote of what remains of His earth and moves it, very slightly. His brothers fail to notice. Through long human years - to which he finds himself strangely attached - he moves the mote. He moves another, and another, and makes calculations, even as he sings His praises with his brothers. He calculates: how much matter he can displace without their noticing; how much energy he can transfer without their understanding his motives; and finally, how long he will have before they try to follow.

Without warning, he moves.

The last battle laid waste not only to the earth, but to all His realms, even time itself, but he is an angel of the Lord, and he will find his way. Heaven is silent. He no longer issues commands; He no longer offers reassurance, or evidence of His love. Angels were made to obey His will, and humans were given reign to choose their path. He knows this. Yet how are angels to obey, when the only commandment is faith? What is left to them but choice? This is not a new lesson, but it is one he forgot when the last human passed from His earth; he chooses.

He is going to a place where the host is undiminished, save for the first fallen. He will need to be small, and quiet, and unseen. He must hide his grace, even as he once hid a seed of doubt. He is by no means without power, but he was never among the strongest of His angels, and he has had years of practice at hiding from his brethren. It is no matter that he will not be able to gather an army, or affect the hearts of men in great numbers. He need only make small changes; he need only be, by his choice, a pebble in the stream.

His brothers will not stop him, for he goes where they cannot expect.

She is young and clear skinned, though pale and thin with want. She is not unclean, or poorly dressed. She looks well, for this time and place of great suffering. She has not gotten this way through hard work, or luck, but through petty evils, which get less petty with each act. She has power. Still, she is no one of importance. Her name appears in no prophecy yet written. She has not been to her crossroads. It makes some things easier.

He watches her. Days pass. She presents a face of plain sweetness to her fellow humans, despite their desperate jealousy and suspicion; despite the deaths around her, which only mount. She is planning her escape, but she is not yet wholly tainted, not yet malicious. This will work.

He does not take a vessel. It would be too obvious, to the host and the fallen alike, in this time when no angels walk His earth. He merely speaks to her, and appears as the thinnest, smallest shadow of his true self. She has power enough for that.

"Hello Ruby," he whispers.

She gasps, and startled, drops her meager dinner by the hearth. "What are you?" Good, he thinks. She sees me clearly, as something new; something stranger and more powerful than the spirits she has dealt with.

"My name is Castiel. I am an angel of the Lord."

"An angel?" Disbelief is obvious. So too is wonder. "What would an angel want with me?" He sees her guilt. He is pleased she still feels it.

"I have work for you." She listens. It takes time, and many words. She is not won over that day. But soon enough she chooses: a pebble in the stream.


End file.
